Peter Howson

Since the dramatic group show ‘The Vigorous Imagination’ in 1987, his heroic portrayals of the dossers and down-and-outs, misfits and hard men of his home town in Glasgow have polarised opinion.However, his work has caught the imagination of public and media alike, making him a celebrity in his own right. His paintings are bought by the world's leading galleries and collected by a notable list of private clients, including Madonna and David Bowie.

Howson’s list of past exhibitions, awards and scholarships, far too extensive to summarise here, range from an Honorary Doctorate to a Royal Mail commission for The Millennium Stamp.

By his mid-thirties, despite his enviable international standing, Howson felt deeply unhappy, 'as if afflicted by a sickness of the soul'. Success had dulled his creative impulse, but in 1993 his work was reinvigorated by his appointment as Official British War Artist. He recorded the horror and futility of the bloody conflict in the former Yugoslavia, giving him a sharp new perspective.

Since then, despite upheavals in his personal life, Howson’s work has had something of a renaissance. Spurred on by his love for his autistic daughter Lucy, and his interest in charitable work, Howson is once again producing work of an exceptional calibre.
He has exhibited highly publicised works of Queen Elizabeth II and pop figurehead Madonna, as well as powerful biblical images of ‘The Stations of the Cross’.